Browser Performance Testing

[bgavin]

Does anybody know of a good tool that will test browser performance, and perhaps give some idea of where the slowdowns occur?

For example, both 3.0.11 and 3.5 versions of Firefox are dismal performers under VMware Workstation 6.5. Using IE6 under the same VM, it is blazing fast.

Outside the VM, Firefox and IE6 seem to perform very similar.

[gdement]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

I used Bubblemark several months ago:
http://bubblemark.com/

It tests Java and other similar active content stuff.

As I recall some of the tests had scores that jump around too much, and it seemed to get slow for no apparent reason at times. It's not very good, I had trouble getting usable results, but it was better than nothing.

[bgavin]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Thanks.

I'm trying to get a handle on why FF is so pokey under VM.
It is almost unusable.

[gdement]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

I've never used VMWare, but I always observed that IE6 is way faster than any Firefox I ever tried. I couldn't figure out what people were talking about when they said Firefox was faster. I used to notice an obvious difference when I was using an old P2.

If VM is more stressful than anything else, that might just be making the difference more apparent than it normally is with modern machines.

[bgavin]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

I'm running Outlook, McAfee and the browsers in a VM. All the online stuff is here. No A/V in the main machine now.

I want to be free of McAfee loading when not using the online functions, hence loading it into a VM for Online only.

I'm wondering if the Ad-Block and YSlow plugins are slowing it down.
IE6 is considerably more nimble than FF 3.0.11 or 3.5.
I could use either, but do like the Tabs in FF.

[sofTest]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

You might want to try the Opera browser. It's known to be among the fastest browsers.

[i4004]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

try maxthon?
it should be just the skin for IE, although it grew to be more in recent time...has tabs...

i had big hopes for chrome, but it's not stable enough....too many tabs crash it...and i do too many tabs...
and with ff i can't get smooth scrolling that works quite nicely out of the box in ie(in ff even extensions for scrolling offer too lil help).

opera is not bad, but they messed it up with (too elaborate) context menus, and keyboard shortcuts(>ctrl+click< of ff and chrome is much better than >ctrl+shift+click>...to that extent chrome surely has most bloat-free gui...), etc.

btw. it is not surprising at all that ff performs poorly in VM, because VM shows what's fast and what is not.
ie is beter written app, probably written in assembler or simillar.
while mozilal(now forefox) is written in this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL
and it's not the same thing as assembler or c++...

as gdement says, it is also slower everywhere, it's just that new machines make this difference less transparent...
(simillar example: try .net programs on p3-300 and c2d above 2ghz.....first of all see how much time does it take just to load the .net virtual machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework )

so ff slowness in VM is a price to pay because ff uses programming language that shoule be "easy" for novices etc.
but as it happens, these languages are usually also a lot slower than older "complicated" languages...

[kc8adu]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

i have noticed opera beats the pants off of ie on my phone.
it is a build just for phones/pda's.
btw the phone is a samsung omnia.

[NxB]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Opera is OK. I used to use it before I got firefox. Having to crack it was a pain so I switched to FF. I wonder what they've done since I stopped using it. It looks like its free now. Ad block plus is what keeps me in FF.

[ratdude747]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

i use firefox because its what im used to. it has become a bit porky and bloated. but then again, my choice in browsers is somewhat limited with ubuntu:

- ff- favorite, has what i want. looks cool with the ubuntu's sand theme enabled. well integrated into gnome. a bit porky.

-chrome.- no menu bar pisses me off. they have a beta whicjh i have but i think it looks too simple. i love menu bars. good when you have only one hand available and you use the mouse a lot. also not open source i think

- opera- ugly icon (no big deal), not open source

-ie6- runs under wine with the app "ies4linux", but slow. not even close to open source. made by microshit. no tabs.

i-ie7/8- not usable under wine at this time. bloated even under windows. made by microshit.

-konqueror- unsupported by many sites. written in qt for kde, not gtk or gnome/xfce. qt under gtk is a memory pig. goofy user interface.

there are others like seamonkey (stripped out ff), dillo (too simple), and something that began with a k and ended in kase (unsupported, not pronounceable name, too simple), but they are not even worth thier own paragraph.

here, a panoramic for all for you:

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Give Google Chrome a shot. It's definitely a newbie on the block, and it takes some getting used to, but Firefox was like that girl-who-used-to-be-hot-but-now-she's-put-on-a-couple-pounds-and-she's-still-hot-but-in-a-chubby-and-not-as-hot-as-she-used-to-be way and I needed a replacement. I'm running an older P4 until Core i7 comes down in price, and Chrome absolutely screams on it. Firefox was getting pretty long in the tooth on my older hardware.

[ratdude747]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Give Google Chrome a shot. It's definitely a newbie on the block, and it takes some getting used to, but Firefox was like that girl-who-used-to-be-hot-but-now-she's-put-on-a-couple-pounds-and-she's-still-hot-but-in-a-chubby-and-not-as-hot-as-she-used-to-be way and I needed a replacement. I'm running an older P4 until Core i7 comes down in price, and Chrome absolutely screams on it. Firefox was getting pretty long in the tooth on my older hardware.

i did, and hated it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

i did, and hated it.

posting from chrome now

i will admit my eee's atom used to be running in the 1.33 to 1.6 range in ff but is staying at 800mhz with minimal load in chrome. adding the bookmarks bar helps a lot.

spellcheck on it isnt as good, and no search engine area though. oh well, worth more of a try.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Uhh, the Chrome recommendation was for bgavin. Don't hijack his thread.

[ratdude747]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

oh, i thought you were addressing me. i wasnt trying to hijack nor do think i really was.

too bad linux chrome has poor flash support since it is still beta

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Chrome on Windows runs gr8. Give it a shot bgavin, let us know.

[ratdude747]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

yeah, i will say chrome is much faster than porky ff. works fine for me, ill try it a while and post later.

[bgavin]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

IIRC, I did a quickie look at Chrome and found it using the IE7/IE8 interface... which I truly hate.

When time permits, I'll take a peek.
I don't do any of the tricky stuff... but want something that does tabs, adheres to standards, and is fast.

I'm noticing FF is getting ever slower as the newer versions release.

[i4004]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

>IIRC, I did a quickie look at Chrome and found it using the IE7/IE8 interface... which I truly hate.

what are you talking about?
chrome looks nothing like ie or any other browser, fot that matter.

see?

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Browser Performance Testing

Chrome's interface is a little funky, but once you get used to it you don't even notice, and like I said, it's a speed demon.